“the permissible number of times my kids can have their heads bashed on the sidewalk by Trayvon Martin is zero”

It was mid-afternoon when I received the phone call. Would I be interested in participating on a panel discussing the Zimmerman case and self-defense law in general, to be hosted on KPCC, the Los Angeles area National Public Radio station? Meh, why not, I told them. And there I was, on hold with my iPhone waiting to “go live,” and thinking: boy, didn’t they see any of my trial tweets? Why would NPR want me on the air?

KPCC

The show was AirTalk with Larry Mantle. Unsurprisingly, I’d never heard of either the show now Larry, but then my home hunting grounds in Boston were a considerable distance away. The others on the panel (although we weren’t all on at the same time) included Brian T. Dunn, a sensible sounding lawyer from the California office of the Cochran Firm, Lawrence Rosenthal, a Professor of Law at Chapman University and Jon Greenbaum, Chief Council for Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights, and Stanley Goldman, Professor of Criminal Law at Stanford Law School and an old-school gun control fascist–he’s the third voice on my segment of the show.

And, me, your humble correspondent.

I didn’t hear the entirety of the hour-long program–hey, I’ll suffer for my craft, but only so much–but did start listening a few minutes before they promised to put me live. Professor Goldman was going on about how the reason Florida v. Zimmerman was such a debacle was because of it’s crazy “Stand Your Ground” law, and how the outcome would have been infinitely more sane had the case been tried, for example, in California. Florida’s SYG law, he explained, gave individuals egregious powers to kill others, above and beyond that found anywhere else in America.

And then I was live.

Larry Mantle: “I know that there are supporters of George Zimmerman who feel he never should have been on trial, to have him even face these charges was malfeasance. What is your opinion about his, particularly looking at it fro a self-defense standpoint?”

Andrew Branca: “Well, I certainly agree with that, and I’d like to talk to that. But before we do , I’ve been listening to the show on hold while it’s been going on, and I hear a lot of discussion about how Florida has this crazy stand-your-ground law that creates these unique legal scenarios. The fact is Florida’s stand-your-ground law is quite common, 33 states are effectively SYG states and have very similar provisions. In fact there is one state that not only lets you to stand your ground, it explicitly allows you to pursue your assailant if necessary for your safety. And that state is California [where the station is located].

KABOOM.

There was more fun antics of that nature, including my closing line: “the permissible number of times my kids can have their heads bashed on the sidewalk by Trayvon Martin is zero”. To listen to the whole thing, see below.

Comments

Mr. Branca, the service you and the Professor provided during the Zimmerman trial was tremendous. The post-trial services you provide in situations such as the one you describe in today’s post are likely more valuable. They’re heard by people who would never be exposed to them, otherwise. Wordy, pontificating, pompous “experts” such as your fellow panel members are usually struck dumb when confronting informed, authoritative, simple and straightforward short statements opposite their own. Professor Goldman is a classic example; he’s either dishonest or ignorant of the law – no other choices exist.

As your reputation spreads I’d expect to see you more in conservative venues and less frequently in the NPRs of the world; they cannot afford to let you in. I hope you stay with it, and thank you.

I strongly disagree with the suggestion that Mr. Branca be seen in more conservative venues and less frequently in the NPRs of the world. That is exactly the wrong approach if you want to spread the truth and wisdom of Mr. Branca and those who we ideologically agree with.

We need to embrace every progressive and leftist venue available to us and spread the ideas of liberty and laws of the constitution. We can no longer afford to preach to the choir. I applaud Mr. Branco for being able to stand up for the values, laws and principles which are the only things that will save this country. Time is running out, Rome is burning.

I Strongly Agree that these viewpoints need to be disseminated on NPR and not just in conservative circles. Had it not been for the Zimmerman witch hunt I never would have found this place, nor expanded some of my own opinions.

I just realized I already Had a profile on WhiteHouse.Gov so I signed Every petition regarding the Injustice’s regarding Holder, Corey and George Zimmerman

I also wrote back to several of my liberal mailings that quite frankly after witnessing this GZ witch hunt, I just really dont care about issues like adding my signature to restore the voting rights act.

So as a voting liberal democrat, I Strongly agree that this idiotic political polarization is isolationist and I am tired of people only talking to like minded rabble be they the NAACP or Freakin Conservatives.

I hope we can all cross party lines more often and in more productive ways.

And this is why I support NPR and also;Thank you Mr Branca for accepting that NPR interview, and for doing such an excellent job expressing the Real issues and making such salient points.

The progressive lawyer seemed to imply that it would be undesirable for a woman to use a gun to defend herself against a rapist because chances are that, if she didn’t, both would eventually be able to walk away from the “unfortunate situation”.

I agree with Branca: I have zero tolerance for anyone smashing a loved ones head against concrete.

“Gun control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her own pantyhose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound.”

I have modified the statement a bit in recent days and posted wherever I see people talking about how terrible the Florida laws are etc.

Because a man laying unconscious or dead after being beaten to a bloody pulp is morally superior to a man explaining to the cops why he shot to stop the pummeling before he could be knocked unconscious or killed?

I first encountered that saying online in the 1990s and the man who said it was science fiction writer L. Neil Smith. I asked if I could borrow it and he said yes. His original quote was about Handgun Control Inc. but it applies to all gun controllers. “Gun control: the group that would rather see a woman dead in an alley with her pantyhose knotted around her neck than see her with a gun in her hand.” It’s still true.

Tell me about it. I live in California. There is a bill in the legislature currently to designate ANY semi-automatic with a detachable magazine as an “assault weapon” which would include my Ruger 10-22 rifle. If that happens, I will be making a trip to drop some firearms off at my 2nd home in Las Vegas.

The notion that GZ shouldn’t get his gun back because he killed someone with it boggles my mind! What is the point of carrying a weapon for self defense if you don’t use it when yourself needs defending?

The following is a partial transcript of the interview (leaving out much of Rosenthal’s comments, and summarizing some of Mantle’s questions):

Mantle: Why was it wrong for the case to be brought?

Branca: “Well, they didn’t have probable cause to bring the charges. The prosecution, even after 14 months – essentially, if you heard their closing, they had almost no direct evidence and very little circumstantial evidence on the elements of the crime that they had to prove to get murder 2.

“It was a very emotional appeal, it was to the heart and ‘Trayvon’s dead’ and so forth, and of course that is a genuine tragedy, but they actually have an affirmative charge, an obligation to bring evidence before the jury beyond a reasonable doubt on each and every element of that second degree murder statute, and they simply didn’t have it.”

Mantle: Is there recourse for Zimmerman in the wake of his acquittal?

Branca: “I don’t know. That’s not my area of expertise. I certainly think that a hearing on sanctions on these prosecutors’ conduct is well warranted. I believe from my observation – and I’ve watched the trial and discovery in its entirety – there was to my eyes considerable misconduct in that discovery process.

“I’ll give you perhaps the most egregious example. The whole point of discovery is that both sides start the trial with the same body of evidence. Now they can take those elements of evidence and build their own story, build their own compelling narrative of guilt or of innocence. They can choose to ignore pieces of that evidence. They can choose to emphasize other pieces more than the other side. That’s all perfectly appropriate, but they’re supposed to start with the same pieces. Like a jigsaw puzzle, they both have the same pieces. When one side denies the other pieces, either affirmatively or by trickery, then it’s not a fair game any more.

“And what the State did in this case was they had a data file from Trayvon’s phone. They generated a written report of the contents of that data file. In fact, the written report only represented a portion of the contents. Then they handed the file and the report together to the defense and said, ‘Here’s the data information.’ Well, the defense assumed that the report covered all the data on the file, especially since they didn’t have the specialized equipment to break into the phone and look at the data themselves. When it was discovered that in fact the report left out a lot of the information, particularly information that would not have looked good for the State, like Trayvon holding a gun, or marijuana plants, or things of that sort, well then of course the whole thing was blown open, and sanction hearings were begun before the trial. Judge Nelson suspended them until after a verdict, but that was egregious, that was trickery.”

Mantle: Should Zimmerman be allowed to get his weapon back?

Branca: “Well if he was allowed to before, why wouldn’t he be allowed to now? He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

Mantle: Well, not something that was judged as a jury by criminal, but the fact that he used the gun against someone else, couldn’t local law enforcement deny his request to carry a weapon?

Branca: “I don’t see that happening in the State of Florida. I mean, I live in Massachusetts where licenses are very discretionary, and that would certainly be the outcome here. I expect in California it’s a very similar situation. But in states that are ‘shall issue’ states, unless the state can affirmatively demonstrate some reason why you are not entitled – and that would be some kind of criminal offense or history of domestic violence or something along those lines – unless they can demonstrate that affirmatively, they can’t deny you the permit. It’s not discretionary on their part.”

(Lawrence Rosenthal makes some remarks on his desire for greater gun control and his belief that “Stand Your Ground” is responsible for an increased number of deaths.)

Mantle: You want to respond to that? Justifiable homicides up significantly since “Stand Your Ground” was enacted.

Branca: “Well, I don’t know if that’s true, but I’ll accept that for discussion’s sake. But I guess I would say, what’s the problem? Because there were justifiable homicides. That means people were lawfully defending themselves against death or grave bodily harm. Would we want the alternative, where they’re forced to suffer death and grave bodily harm rather than defend themselves?”

Lawrence Rosenthal makes some more comments and then remarks: “There was no good reason that Trayvon Martin died. We shouldn’t forget that.”

Mantle: And I know you have to go Mr. Branca. Quick closing comment, sir.

Branca: “Well I would just say that I’m afraid there was good reason. He was committing an aggravated assault on somebody, he was beating their head on the sidewalk, and I don’t know if you have any children, but I have several, and my permissible number of whacks of their head on the sidewalk by Trayvon Martin is zero.”

1. The gun-control lobby’s new favorite stat is how the number of justifiable homicides in Florida have nearly tripled since SYG was enacted.

The number of justifiable homicides went from an average of 12 per year to an average of 35 per year — during a period when the total homicide rate went from an average of 902 deaths per year to an average of 1071 deaths per year. In other words, a statistically insignificant increase in the number of justifiable homicide deaths.

2. The stat only cites justifiable homicides but does not indicate how many are gun deaths and how many occur by other means. Additionally, it appears that “justifiable homicides” includes criminals shot by the police in the line of duty, giving the lie to the implication that SYG leads to vigilante action;

3. Professor Goldman is being dishonest when he says that had George Zimmerman not had a gun, both men would be alive today. Given the severity and nature of the beating that Zimmerman was taking from Martin, it’s not only possible but likely that Martin would have beaten Zimmerman to the point where Zimmerman suffered a fatal brain hemorrhage.

What a wonderful dropping of the hammer right at the end of the show. You left nothing more that could be said!

Now I’ve recently got your book, so please quit putting so much of interest on this blog (which I am terribly addicted to since I discovered the absolutely tremendous coverage of l’affaire Zimmerman) so that I can read it!

Really, you did a wonderful job on that interview. That pompous windbag opposing you looked pretty foolish, which I greatly appreciated.

These are the stats on justifiable homicides in Florida,pre- and post SYG, in a sortable format, including whether the shooter was a civilian or a LEO, and the race of both the shooter and the victim. Just if anyone’s interested:

I appreciate the stats, love ’em. In the context of this particular discussion, however they are a trap. The other guy just gets to argue about the underlying methodology, or makes up his own numbers or talks about there are hardly any shooting deaths in Antarctica.

I couldn’t care less if shooting deaths went up after SYG by 5%, or 10%, or 100%, so long as the right people are doing the dying.

If some thug attacks a law-abiding armed citizen with deadly force, they ought not be surprised when they hear a loud noise and spring a leak

The statistical anti-gun arguments are used effectively by the left, even when they are mostly spouting nonsense. If anybody can turn that back on them, you would be the one to do it. Your speaking style is much better than John Lott’s. He comes off as a bit of an egg-head when he speaks, and he doesn’t handle himself as well as you do in an adversarial speaking forum. Just once, I would like to see Piers Morgan arguing gun control with somebody who has the knowledge and speaking abilities to kick his ass, instead of the eccentric 2nd amendment types that rant and rave and make Piers look sensible and reasonable by comparison.

Wish you had more time to confront the idiotic statement if no guns were involved in the confrontation, nobody would have been dead, by quoting the witnesses who testified if the head-banging continued George could have been killed, or suffered permanent head trauma.

I’m not a lawyer, but I do know this and that about statistics. The thing that jumps out at me from the data linked by Amy in Florida is that in 2007 justifiable homicides in Florida jump for both police and civilians by an equal amount.

Thus, any explanation of the data has to provide an explanation that is not affected by the difference between police an civilians. This immediately refutes any argument that the behavior of civilian shooters has changed; so far as I know, the police have never had a duty to retreat.

On looking into it further, it could possibly even be a change in definition/terminology or way the stats are calculated, a change which took effect in 2007? Like the way the number of autism sufferers and people with high cholesterol jumped when we redefined the qualifications for having autism &/or high cholesterol?

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“Gary Kleck, a professor of criminology at Florida State University, has researched how the FBI and police departments define justifiable homicide.

Criminologists are suspicious of sharp increases or decreases within a short time frame, he said.

‘I don’t believe anything triples.…Increases that sharp are probably due to some artificial cause like a shift in how people are defining events,’ Kleck said. ‘It’s possible nothing actually changed in frequency except police departments increasingly defined homicide claimed to be defensive as a justifiable homicide. … Local police departments are increasingly viewing alleged defensible homicide as falling into the UCR definition. I don’t think they are trying to rig data, they honestly shifted their perceptions of what qualifies.’

Bill Eddins, state attorney in Florida’s 1st Circuit and president of the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association, said he couldn’t conclude if there is a correlation between the ‘stand your ground’ law and the increase in justifiable homicides.

To determine the effect of the ‘stand your ground’ law would require examining how many times the statute was used, the result of the case and whether or not the ‘stand your ground’ statute contributed to that resolution, he said.

‘There is no real measurement set up to do that at this point. I cannot reach the conclusion that there is a direct correlation in the increases of justifiable homicide as a result of stand your ground law. I know other people are saying you can, but I can’t reach it.'”

In any case
(1) there’s something screwy-looking with that big jump starting in 2007
(2) there’s no evidence of a widespread “creepy-ass crackas going around gunning down innocent black children” epidemic
(3) with over a million civilian CCL holders here, 35-40 justifiable homicide deaths is not a huge number in the big scheme of things
(4) violent crime per 100,000 citizens in Florida is down from 705.8 in 2006, the first full year of the SYG law, to 496.2 in 2012.

Mr. Branca – outstanding job, as usual. I particularly liked your answer to the stat about justifiable homicides tripling as a result of Florida’s SYG law – essentially “what’s the problem”. The only thing I might add to your response is that in addition to the shooter preventing their own serious injury or death, they likely provided our society the fringe benefit of ending whatever future harm would befall their neighbors at the hands of these violent criminals.

Another thing that has frustrated me in the aftermath of the Zimmerman trial is that all the “remediation” discussions has focused on those who might defend themselves. But this fails to recognize that the number one cause of Trayvon Martin’s death was not the methods employed by a vigilant community watchman, or the conceal-carry or SYG laws of Florida. The number one cause of his death, by far, was the fact that Mr. Martin was inclined to unjustified violent reactions to non-violent events such as being watched and possible followed (for a time) by Mr. Zimmerman that night.

Anyone who has taught in public schools knows that someone like this will frequently get into fights just because someone else looks at him the wrong way. This unjustifiable, irrational rage and the inevitable violence that follows would have eventually led Mr. Martin to the same fate. And if we really want to protect people like him, that’s the issue which mostly needs to be addressed.

I’ve seem so many make lists of all the things that Mr. Zimmerman could have done differently that night to avoid the confrontation – stay in his car, announce he was, not follow, etc. But as you know, none of those things are illegal, and given he had a legitimate duty to keep an eye out for his neighbors, one could argue that these actions are indeed proper. But regardless, the one action that clearly crossed the line was how Mr. Martin reacted, with violence, to what Mr. Zimmerman was doing that night. And that action, and the blind rage which motivated it, is what really needs to change. Otherwise, no matter what else is done, young people like Mr. Martin will continue to be at risk.